Human Rights Report 2005 Georgia
Human Rights Information and Documentation Center (HRIDC) Next Stop – Belarus ? Human Rights Report 2005 Georgia Tbilisi, Georgia 2006 1 2 - Contents - Introduction 4 Overviews of Human Rights Reports 6 Rule of Law 10 Law Enforcement Organs 15 Torture and Maltreatment 22 Detention Facilities 27 Fair Trial 30 Freedom of Media 37 Freedom of Demonstration 52 Civil Society and Opposition 56 Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 62 Freedom of Religion 69 Trafficking 70 Women and Children 76 Conflict Regions 78 Socio-Economic Issues 81 3 4 - Introduction – Another year has passed since the Georgian democratic ‘Rose Revolution’ of November 2003. Another year for the new government to deliver upon the expectations and hopes it had deliberately raised for the inhabitants of Georgia and the international community, another year to show that it had the genuine and altruistic intention of breaking with the past, which too often proved to be corrupt, cynical, and careless. Another year to put an end to the same plays, merely with different sets and actors, and to attempt the establishment of a realm within which a more just, open, and livable society for all could be created. In December 2004, the Human Rights Information and Documentation Center (HRIDC) published its first report on the human rights situation in Georgia after the ‘Rose Revolution’.1 The report – ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back’ dealt with the tendencies in the field of human rights after the hope-giving change of power. Together with positive developments, like the creation of the Patrol Police, the peaceful transition of authority in the Adjara region, anti corruptive measures, and reforms carried out in different governmental structures, the report described the existing anti-democratic tendencies and massive human rights violations caused by neglect of the rule of law and general lack of respect for ‘the human’ on the side of the new government.
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